Bits: Business Traveller Christmas auction bargains, Virgin Atlantic extends leisure routes

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News in brief:

Get a bargain in the Business Traveller charity auction

Business Traveller magazine is once again running its annual online charity auction. This year the cause is The Royal Hospital for Neuro-Disability in Putney.

BT has an unbeatable contact list in the industry and they have put together a huge list of items, from flights to cuddy toys. See here for details.

It is obviously for a great cause, so do take a quick look and see if anything takes your fancy. The deadline for bids is tomorrow, December 31st.

It is limited to Business Traveller UK readers so the competition for lots is not huge, although don’t expect many giveaways. I know at least one Head for Points reader successfully got a bargain in previous years.

As usual, Jumeirah has thrown in some very generous packages and, at the moment, those lots are looking very undervalued – possibly because not a lot of people are aware of how good their properties are. Five nights in a Club Premier Suite at Emirates Towers in Dubai, for example, is just £869 at the time of writing – you would be paying around £2,700 for the same room in February.

There are some other Dubai hotels on the list which also seem underpriced.

There is one other lot which looks like it is slipping under the radar. Singapore Airlines has donated five 12-month passes for two people for its Heathrow Terminal 2 business class lounge. These are currently selling for a pitiful £26 to £36 each.

If you fly out of Terminal 2 on a regular basis then buying one of these passes would be an outstanding deal. You can use the lounge irrespective of which carrier you are flying on (according to the terms and conditions) – all you need to remember is that the lounge is in the B satellite so you would need to walk there and back if flying from the main building.

Virgin Atlantic 747

Virgin Atlantic extends leisure routes for 2016/17

Virgin Atlantic has released details of new and increased frequencies on popular leisure routes which will kick in from next year:

Havana – an extra weekly flight added between November 2016 and March 2017

Glasgow to Orlando – season extended so the service will now continue to November 2016 and then restart a month earlier than usual, in March 2017

Manchester to Las Vegas – season extended so the service will now continue to November 2016 and then restart a month earlier than usual, in March 2017

Gatwick to Las Vegas – two additional weekly flights added in September and October 2016

Gatwick to Orlando – three additional weekly flights added in August 2016

You will also be able to earn and spend Virgin Flying Club miles on two new Delta Air Lines services from next year:

Heathrow to Salt Lake City

Edinburgh to New York JFK

How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards (December 2021)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Virgin Points from UK credit cards. Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses.

You can choose from two official Virgin Atlantic credit cards (apply here, one has a bonus of 15,000 points):

Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard

The UK’s most generous free Visa or Mastercard at 0.75 points / £1 Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

15,000 points bonus and the most generous non-Amex for day to day spending Read our full review

You can also earn Virgin Points from various American Express cards – and these have sign-up bonuses too.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold is FREE for a year and comes with 20,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 20,000 Virgin Points: